We are delighted to introduce Anastasia Fadeeva as one of our Data Impact Fellows. She shares her background, her current work and research and what she hopes to get out of the Fellows scheme.
I am a Research Fellow in Health Sciences at the Violence and Society Centre, at City St George’s University of London, and I work full-time for the Violence, Health and Society (VISION) research consortium.
Background
I got a medical degree from St Petersburg Pavlov State Medical University, and during my training, I became increasingly aware of the impact of social determinants on people’s health and developed my interest in public health.
This interest led me to completing an MSc in Public Health at London Metropolitan University followed by a PhD at Northumbria University. For the PhD project, I used mixed methods to examine changes in wellbeing during retirement transition and how to best support older people’s physical and mental adjustment to retirement.
After finishing my PhD, I did the first postdoc in the Northern Hub For Veterans and Military Families Research at Northumbria University. I worked for the Map of Need project and researched the distribution, patterns, and determinants of physical and mental health in the UK veterans’ cohort.
This work has resulted in published academic journal articles (Fadeeva et al. 2022, Fadeeva et al., 2023, Fadeeva et al., 2024), articles for popular science websites (Fadeeva et al., 2023), and a report for charity (Kiernan et al., 2021).
My research
In my current post, I provide interdisciplinary insight by combining health and justice perspectives on violence prevention.
I lead a programme package on health within the VISION Consortium. I investigate how violence and abuse present within health data including administrative data such as Heath Episode Statistics (HES), Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS), and South Wales-linked Accident and Emergency (A&E) and police data alongside surveys such as the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS), both available via the UK Data Service.
I used ELSA and APMS data to examine the associations between violence, common mental disorders, and contact with services. I have also used the Crime Survey for England and Wales to examine how victims of violence access medical support.
Recently, I completed a year-long secondment as a researcher embedded within the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
I accessed data through the DHSC’s internal and secure Trusted Research Environment (TRE), conducted a review of the use of national health and social care data sources for understanding the distribution of violence in England.
This secondment has helped me to better understand ways to better meet the information and evidence needs of policy makers and wider audiences, including via blogs, briefings, and engaging with consultations.
Additionally, my research has a particular focus on evidencing the mental health consequences of violence and abuse against older people.
I have used ELSA and APMS data to measure the prevalence and health consequences of different forms of violent victimisation in later life to raise awareness of this neglected area. For example, the results of the APMS analysis showed:
- while less likely than younger people to have had recent experience of violence, older people were also victims,
- that violence in older age was not just from family members but also often from an intimate partner;
- that there were pronounced ethnic inequalities in rates; and that
- associations with common mental disorders (CMD) were strong, and persisted when other adversities were controlled for.
I have actively engaged with NHS England, Hourglass (a charity that focuses on preventing abuse of older people), and the National Research Network on Domestic Abuse in Older People to provide expert support on measuring violence in health data and violence in older age, share VISION findings with the wider public and practitioner audiences, and identify new opportunities for policy impact and future research.
My future plans
Being a part of the UK Data Impact Fellowship will support me in engaging with a wider range of stakeholders and audiences via a series of high impact public events.
Specifically, I am planning to engage with the DHSC, NHS England, Hourglass, healthcare professionals, care homes, and representatives from local councils on the issues of violence in older age, the long-terms impacts of violence on mental health, and the lack of reliable data.
The focus of our discussions will be on the need to have a dedicated focus on the issues of violence and abuse in later life and how the extent of the problem can be better estimated, especially among the at risk population groups including ethnic minorities and people with physical and mental health problems.
I am also hoping to engage internationally with our research on the measurement of violence using health data and the extent of violence in older age.
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